All I can find is echostar 6...help!

[Lord_Perth]

Hey guys.

I got my motorized system from you yesterday and I have it up, but I am having a very hard time finding my true South satellite. I can hit Echostar 6/7 at 110 W with no problem at all, so I assume my elevation is correct.

My true south Satellite is AMC3 and I've been using the PBS transponder at 12110. I've tried to get several others to no avail but I have a pretty good signal on the echostar sat which does me little good other than to tell me that it does work.

Any suggestions? I could use any advice I can get at this point.

[radiobob]

Lord Perth:

I'm in a similar battle (trying to get my true south sat), but have found that the Muslim TV Int'l channels on AMC3 11734-V 6102 cook along 24/7; in fact, it's one of the only things I can receive!

Good luck,
Bob

[Lord_Perth]

Thanks for the info> I'll give those a shot tonight. I gpt rained out this afternoon so I gave up for a while. Plus I can see my test monitor better at night anyway.

Good luck to you as well.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Lord_Perth

Hey guys.

I got my motorized system from you yesterday and I have it up, but I am having a very hard time finding my true South satellite. I can hit Echostar 6/7 at 110 W with no problem at all, so I assume my elevation is correct.

My true south Satellite is AMC3 and I've been using the PBS transponder at 12110. I've tried to get several others to no avail but I have a pretty good signal on the echostar sat which does me little good other than to tell me that it does work.

Any suggestions? I could use any advice I can get at this point.

Being able to hit the Echo sat at 110 doesn't say much about your "elevation" being correct. You could be way off on your angles, and still get a couple sats, because you pretty much have to cross the Clarke belt somewhere. You might give more details about your lat/lon, what system (dish and motor) you have, what angles you are using on the motor and dish settings, how you're finding true south (magnetic deviation if via compass) and also what settings you have entered in the receiver for sat setup (LO freq,etc), etc. It might help people recognize where you went wrong.

[Lord_Perth]

Thanks for the tips wejones. Here's my info:

I have the $299.00 motorized dish package from Sadoun with:

31" Fortec Dish
Fortec Star Mercury 2 Receiver
Stab HH90 motor and universal LNB.

My location is Athens, Alabama at 35614
Latitude 34.85171
Longitude -86.93764

So, I have my motor set almost at 35
The dish came out to be 39.4 and I calculated my azimuth angle to be 178.
I came up with AMC3 for my true south satellite.

The dish is attached to a true vercical steel pole checked with a level. The previous homeowners here had a dish installed previously so I was lucky there...cables run underground, very nice job on that.

The receiver is setup for the Universal LNB and I have just been going to the Antenna Setup menu, switching the active satellite to AMC3 and switching to transponders listed as active at lyngsat.com.

Thanks for the help.

[lostinthewoods]

When I was setting up my motorized system, I had major problems such as yours. I was able to see AMC3 when the dish was mounted on the mast, but not when setup on the motor using all the correct angles.
End analysis was the scale on the dish for setting declination was off by about 5 degrees! Finally set the dish on the mast, measured the angle of the mount on the backside of the dish with my protractor and then re-mounted on the motor and set the angle again. This time, I hit the AMC3 the first time and then did a fine tune.

After that, I hit everything on the arc that is between my tree line!

Lost

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Lord_Perth

Thanks for the tips wejones. Here's my info:

I have the $299.00 motorized dish package from Sadoun with:

31" Fortec Dish
Fortec Star Mercury 2 Receiver
Stab HH90 motor and universal LNB.

My location is Athens, Alabama at 35614
Latitude 34.85171
Longitude -86.93764

So, I have my motor set almost at 35
The dish came out to be 39.4 and I calculated my azimuth angle to be 178.
......

Assuming that when you refer to azimuth, that you are referring to the compass heading used to get your mount oriented to face true south, for your lat/lon, your magnetic deviation is approximately 2.5 deg, which would mean that you'd use a compass heading of 182.5. Ie, you may have subtracted instead of added. Just one possibility.

[Lord_Perth]

Originally Posted by wejones

Assuming that when you refer to azimuth, that you are referring to the compass heading used to get your mount oriented to face true south, for your lat/lon, your magnetic deviation is approximately 2.5 deg, which would mean that you'd use a compass heading of 182.5. Ie, you may have subtracted instead of added. Just one possibility.

Yep, I did subtract. Looking at the map, I thought that was a "-". Regardless, I am having a devil of a time. I went back over everything last night, and it is all put together properly. I'll make the adjustment for true south today and see what happens. Thanks for your input.

[Lord_Perth]

Originally Posted by lostinthewoods

When I was setting up my motorized system, I had major problems such as yours. I was able to see AMC3 when the dish was mounted on the mast, but not when setup on the motor using all the correct angles.
End analysis was the scale on the dish for setting declination was off by about 5 degrees! Finally set the dish on the mast, measured the angle of the mount on the backside of the dish with my protractor and then re-mounted on the motor and set the angle again. This time, I hit the AMC3 the first time and then did a fine tune.

After that, I hit everything on the arc that is between my tree line!

Lost

That's encouraging news Lost. Thanks. I'm going to pull the motor off and see if I can hit AMC3 that way. And even though I can get a signal on Echostar6, the best I can get is 86%, and the signal quality is at around 50%...not too good! I'm about sick of the DVR channel LOL.

[Lord_Perth]

Originally Posted by lostinthewoods

When I was setting up my motorized system, I had major problems such as yours. I was able to see AMC3 when the dish was mounted on the mast, but not when setup on the motor using all the correct angles.
End analysis was the scale on the dish for setting declination was off by about 5 degrees! Finally set the dish on the mast, measured the angle of the mount on the backside of the dish with my protractor and then re-mounted on the motor and set the angle again. This time, I hit the AMC3 the first time and then did a fine tune.

After that, I hit everything on the arc that is between my tree line!

Lost

You are the man! This did the trick. After I read your post, I went out and had AMC3 locked in at around the five minute mark. I used the "step" feature on the receiver and hit other sats with no problem. Now that I put everything away and came in, it won't lock in to anything but AMC3, so now it's back out to make some minor adjustments.

Thanks again. I've been trying to hit AMC3 since Friday afternoon.

UPDATE: The system now works just like it's supposed to. I set the motor up in USALS mode, entered my coordinates and it goes straight to the position it's supposed to every time! Thanks for the help guys. I'm really happy with it.